Paolo Ruffilli

Paolo Ruffilli was born in 1949. Attended the University of Bologna, where he studied modern literature. After a period of teaching, he became editor with the publisher Garzanti in Milan, and is presently the general editor of the Edizioni del Leone in Venice.

Voilà! their arrival
into the sad blue
bridge heads
from the west fed
occupying with heed
closer still,
the apogee of the sky
and, opposed by
contrary currents,
abruptly defer
their course
the winds cause them
to surpass, each one
over the next,
mixing scalloped
crests
mountain buffets mountain
hews it and reduces it,
with a tumbling slide
on its side,
unfurling and refilling
shifting the light
from black
to purple
to white.

*

Ribbed sky,
frayed strips
billowed more
and more
racing, ready…
one, two, three
in the purse that
licks the horizon
they have slipped on
the Mediterranean sea.
Empyrean fire gold
against what
remains of night,
light, it disadorns
buttonholes
and from the drama
of the illumined path
itself removes.

*

A flock of sheep,
lagging, from the sea
proceeding yonder above
toward fervid resplendence
the lather
teems along
thinning
feather by feather.
No herd
by no shepherd
conducted
more rarefied,
and then still more,
the herd slides
down deeper
dipping swiftly
to the smoulder of
the setting sun.

*

Cloud backs
leaden flash
of the lunar wake
that, to every onslaught,
seem to rid
thoughts from their
packed lairs
in shut envelope
on the Europe.
Dark ebony sky
blue night cobalt
sky of the arcane, face
of the Mediterranean place.